Gotya! As both management servers can run this script the output changes. Based on that the threshold is met and we het the critical alerts. The check uses a VBS script that starts with setting the locale: SetLocale(“en-us”) So it requires the dot.
Thus an inconsistency on management servers (to be more specific: the account that is used) in combination with this MP causes this issue.

Solution

In my opinion this management pack has to be rebuild to support multi language systems instead if only en-us. You cannot expect all clients to use the same locales on their management servers.

A workaround for current MP users is to make sure that the account used which probably is the SDK service account uses these locales.

]]>https://marthijnvanrheenen.wordpress.com/2016/07/10/nutanix-management-pack-disk-used-percentage-false-positives/feed/0mvanrheenenSCOM Citrix monitoring Comtrade MP’s will be FREE! (*)https://marthijnvanrheenen.wordpress.com/2016/04/06/scom-citrix-monitoring-comtrade-mps-will-be-free/
https://marthijnvanrheenen.wordpress.com/2016/04/06/scom-citrix-monitoring-comtrade-mps-will-be-free/#commentsWed, 06 Apr 2016 09:11:09 +0000http://marthijnvanrheenen.wordpress.com/?p=998]]>It might have been me bussy moving to a new new home that i missed this news. Fortunately i got triggered by a post from a well respected SCOM Guru Stefan Roth.

On the Citrix Summit 2016 in las Vegas Citrix anounced that they acquired the ComTrade management packs for Citrix. More on that new on the Comtrade site here. Citrix also published this news on their own site here.

One important line on the Citix page:

The add-on packs for SCOM listed below wil be exclusively available from Citrix, and an entitlement to XenApp and XenDesktop Platinum customers with active Subscription Advantage (SA) or Software Maintenace (SWM) at no extra cost.

Update 7-4-2016: Today Kenneth van Surksum pointed out to me that this only applies to Platinum customers which is something that i didn’t see in the first place. This means you still have to pay for the license if you are not.

Thanks Kenneth!

]]>https://marthijnvanrheenen.wordpress.com/2016/04/06/scom-citrix-monitoring-comtrade-mps-will-be-free/feed/2mvanrheenenSCOM 2012 & 2016 New List For Network Devices with Extended Monitoring Capabilityhttps://marthijnvanrheenen.wordpress.com/2016/03/04/scom-2012-2016-new-list-for-network-devices-with-extended-monitoring-capability-2/
https://marthijnvanrheenen.wordpress.com/2016/03/04/scom-2012-2016-new-list-for-network-devices-with-extended-monitoring-capability-2/#respondFri, 04 Mar 2016 08:22:23 +0000http://marthijnvanrheenen.wordpress.com/?p=994]]>Microsoft published a list for network devices with extended monitoring capabilities. It has been a while sinds this was updated so it is more then welcome.
The list can be downloaded here:

]]>https://marthijnvanrheenen.wordpress.com/2016/03/04/scom-2012-2016-new-list-for-network-devices-with-extended-monitoring-capability-2/feed/0mvanrheenenFree OMS e-book (Preview release)https://marthijnvanrheenen.wordpress.com/2016/01/13/free-oms-e-book-preview-release/
https://marthijnvanrheenen.wordpress.com/2016/01/13/free-oms-e-book-preview-release/#respondWed, 13 Jan 2016 09:57:34 +0000http://marthijnvanrheenen.wordpress.com/?p=989]]>An e-book for OMS has been published last week.
The e-book is written by Microsoft MVPs Tao Yang, Stanislav Zhelyazkov and Pete Zerger, along with Anders Bengtsson.

Slow load of alert view when it is opened by an operator
Sometimes when the operators change between alert views, the views take up to two minutes to load. After this update rollup is installed, the reported performance issue is eradicated. The Alert View Load for the Operator role is now almost same as that for the Admin role user.

SCOMpercentageCPUTimeCounter.vbs causes enterprise wide performance issue
Health Service encountered slow performance every five to six (5-6) minutes in a cyclical manner. This update rollup resolves this issue.

System Center Operations Manager Event ID 33333 Message: The statement has been terminated.
This change filters out “statement has been terminated” warnings that SQL Server throws. These warning messages cannot be acted on. Therefore, they are removed.

System Center 2012 R2 Operations Manager: Report event 21404 occurs with error ‘0x80070057’ after Update Rollup 3 or Update Rollup 4 is applied.
In Update Rollup 3, a design change was made in the agent code that regressed and caused SCOM agent to report error ‘0x80070057’ and MonitoringHost.exe to stop responding/crash in some scenarios. This update rollup rolls back that UR3 change.

SDK service crashes because of Callback exceptions from event handlers being NULL
In a connected management group environment in certain race condition scenarios, the SDK of the local management group crashes if there are issues during the connection to the different management groups. After this update rollup is installed, the SDK of the local management group should no longer crash.

Run As Account(s) Expiring Soon — Alert does not raise early enough
The 14-day warning for the RunAs account expiration was not visible in the SCOM console. Customers received only an Error event in the console three days before the account expiration. After this update rollup is installed, customers will receive a warning in their SCOM console 14 days before the RunAs account expiration, and receive an Error event three (3) days before the RunAs account expiration.

Network Device Certification
As part of Network device certification, we have certified the following additional devices in Operations Manager to make extended monitoring available for them:•Cisco ASA5515

Cisco ASA5525

Cisco ASA5545

Cisco IPS 4345

Cisco Nexus 3172PQ

Cisco ASA5515-IPS

Cisco ASA5545-IPS

F5 Networks BIG-IP 2000

Dell S4048

Dell S3048

Cisco ASA5515sc

Cisco ASA5545sc

French translation of APM abbreviation is misleading
The French translation of “System Center Management APM service” is misleading. APM abbreviation is translated incorrectly in the French version of Microsoft System Center 2012 R2 Operations Manager. APM means “Application Performance Monitoring” but is translated as “Advanced Power Management.” This fix corrects the translation.

p_HealthServiceRouteForTaskByManagedEntityId does not account for deleted resource pool members in System Center 2012 R2 Operations Manager
If customers use Resource Pools and take some servers out of the pool, discovery tasks start failing in some scenarios. After this update rollup is installed, these issues are resolved.

Exception in the ‘Managed Computer’ view when you select Properties of a managed server in Operations Manager Console
In the Operations Manager Server “Managed Computer” view on the Administrator tab, clicking the “Properties” button of a management server causes an error. After this update rollup is installed, a dialog box that contains a “Heart Beat” tab is displayed.

Duplicate entries for devices when network discovery runs
When customers run discovery tasks to discover network devices, duplicate network devices that have alternative MAC addresses are discovered in some scenarios. After this update rollup is installed, customers will not receive any duplicate devices discovered in their environments.

Preferred Partner Program in Administration Pane
This update lets customers view certified System Center Operations Manager partner solutions directly from the console. Customers can obtain an overview of the partner solutions and visit the partner websites to download and install the solutions.

]]>https://marthijnvanrheenen.wordpress.com/2015/11/02/update-rollup-8-for-system-center-2012-r2-operations-manager/feed/0mvanrheenenNew Release MP Author and MP Studio (v6.3)https://marthijnvanrheenen.wordpress.com/2015/10/14/new-release-mp-author-and-mp-studio-v6-3/
https://marthijnvanrheenen.wordpress.com/2015/10/14/new-release-mp-author-and-mp-studio-v6-3/#respondWed, 14 Oct 2015 07:25:52 +0000http://marthijnvanrheenen.wordpress.com/?p=974]]>MP Author is still a great tool for authoring management packs.
With each new version functionalities are added which makes this tool very valuable and should be in every SCOM admins toolbox.

New in this version:

References can now be added, deleted and have aliases renamed;

Hosted targets are now supported;

Sealed MP’s now are shown with a lock icon on the tab; modified files have a * in the tab;

]]>https://marthijnvanrheenen.wordpress.com/2015/10/14/new-release-mp-author-and-mp-studio-v6-3/feed/0mvanrheenenVeeam v8 – Several dashboards not showing, but the Enterprise Plus license is installedhttps://marthijnvanrheenen.wordpress.com/2015/10/06/veeam-v8-several-dashboards-not-showing-but-the-enterprise-plus-license-is-installed/
https://marthijnvanrheenen.wordpress.com/2015/10/06/veeam-v8-several-dashboards-not-showing-but-the-enterprise-plus-license-is-installed/#commentsTue, 06 Oct 2015 19:02:08 +0000http://marthijnvanrheenen.wordpress.com/?p=958]]>Some days ago I ran into an issue when I did an upgrade for the Veeam management pack for VMware from version 7 to version 8.
The upgrade on the Management server and collector server went smoothly.

Unfortunately, the thing I was looking forward to most, wasn’t working. I am talking about the Morning Coffee dashboard.

When looking in the Veeam UI I can see the license is Enterprise Plus:

Flushing the Health Service on the management servers fixed this problem.

Looks awesome!

]]>https://marthijnvanrheenen.wordpress.com/2015/10/06/veeam-v8-several-dashboards-not-showing-but-the-enterprise-plus-license-is-installed/feed/1mvanrheenenIs the Page Life Expectancy monitor bugging you? Go consecutive!https://marthijnvanrheenen.wordpress.com/2015/03/08/is-the-page-life-expectancy-monitor-bugging-you-go-consecutive/
https://marthijnvanrheenen.wordpress.com/2015/03/08/is-the-page-life-expectancy-monitor-bugging-you-go-consecutive/#respondSun, 08 Mar 2015 20:25:52 +0000http://marthijnvanrheenen.wordpress.com/?p=941]]>I think it was SQL management pack version 6.4.0.0 where the Page Life Expectancy monitor was introduced. The monitor was very evident because it generated quite some alerts in the OpsMgr environments i build/manage.
I need it to be clear that i am not stating the monitor is buggy, because it isn’t.

** Update – In the latest SQL managament pack 6.6.0.0 this monitor is consecutive by default and this post has become obsolete. It is still usefull as example for making a consecutive monitor.

What is SQL Page Life Expectancy (PLE)?

Page Life Expectancy is the number of seconds a page will stay in the buffer pool without references. In simple words, if your page stays longer in the buffer pool (area of the memory cache) your PLE is higher, leading to higher performance as every time request comes there are chances it may find its data in the cache itself instead of going to hard drive to read the data.
(http://blog.sqlauthority.com/2010/12/13/sql-server-what-is-page-life-expectancy-ple-counter/)

The monitor can be found in the Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Monitoring and the Microsoft SQL server 2012 monitoring management packs.
It is targeted agains the SQL server DB engines classes and checks the Buffer Node:Page Life Expectancy perfmon object every 15 minutes (300 sec).
If the value is below 300 it wil raise a critical alert.

The configurable options for this monitor are limited:

When and how should i tune this?

I have been asked this question a few times, but unfortunately there is no simple answer for this. I advice my clients to tune their SQL environment in such a way the value will never be under 300 seconds.
I have clients where on some servers on specific times the PLE counter drops to ZERO and they can’t do anything about it. So there we have it, the main reason why i spend time in writing this post. (I know some of you OpsMgr admins have the same problem!!)

What are the options for tuning in such a scenario:

Disable the monitor for the specific SQL server. –> No way, you will be blind on PLE performance 24hrs;

Put the object in maintenance mode. –> also not a good choice. The PLE monitor is targetted at the SQL Server DB Engine class. When this is put into maintence mode many more things will not be monitored during maintenace….;

Making two scheduled tasks that run PowerShell scripts. One for disabeling the PLE monitor 5 mins before the issue occurs and one to enable the monitor again. –> This is an option, but this can create quite some administrative overhead for the OpsMgr admins;

Create a consecutive sample monitor and apply this for the specific servers. –> Yep, this is the way i want to go!!

Creating a consecutive sample monitor for Page Life Expectancy in the Operations Manager 2012 console.

A consecutive sample monitor gives you the ability to measure stuff and evaluate it over more samples. This makes it possible to let OpsMgr check the value and generate an alert when the value meets a specific threshold for X samples.

Creating a consecutive monitor can be done in the Operations Manager 2012 console. Remember that the SQL 2008 and the SQL 2012 monitoring MP both contain a seperate PLE monitor.
These are the steps for creating the new monitor:

Go to Authoring –> Monitors. choose add unit Monitor:

I created an Addendum management pack. Probably the Override pack will also be a good place.

I disable the monitor by default and override it later for the specific SQL servers.

All you need to do now is disable the original PLE monitor and enable this one for the troubled SQL servers.

Hopefully this helps you reducing the SQL alerts while keeping the monitoring intact.

Let’s make it manageable!

]]>https://marthijnvanrheenen.wordpress.com/2015/03/08/is-the-page-life-expectancy-monitor-bugging-you-go-consecutive/feed/0mvanrheenenSCOMPLE01SCOMPLE02SCOMPLE03SCOMPLE04SCOMPLE05SCOMPLE06SCOMPLE07SCOMPLE08Global Service Monitor Failing Configurationhttps://marthijnvanrheenen.wordpress.com/2015/02/01/global-service-monitor-configuration-fails/
https://marthijnvanrheenen.wordpress.com/2015/02/01/global-service-monitor-configuration-fails/#respondSun, 01 Feb 2015 20:25:49 +0000http://marthijnvanrheenen.wordpress.com/?p=936]]>Just a quick post about a failing GSM configuration.
I had two management servers on a customer site running Server 2012 R2. When configuring GSM as described here: